Summertime...

and the living is...well you know the rest.

So easy is fact that I had time to follow up my ten best jazz gigs (I counted eleven of them) with ten jazz albums which to my mind are really underrated and in some cases almost unknown. At least three of them (Dolphy/Little, Lateef and Szabo) are right up there in my twenty or so favourites. As is the DDonald Byrd. So, have you heard any of these?

(last blog until next weekend I am off to Lyon for a few days and for the first time in two years I am planning to go two consecutive days without turning on a computer).

Next Album – Sonny Rollins

Form 1973. Totally unknown and to my mind one of his best. This is happy like most Rollins albums. It was probably ignored because everyone was listening to Herbie and Miles and jazz-fusion in 1972. I love George Cables’ keyboard playing too on this.

Fancy Free – Donald Byrd

This is a classic album. Beautiful playing – particularly on the title track from Byrd and Frank Foster more usually associated with the Basie band and showing a completely different side of himself here. Donald Byrd is a great musician who lost credibility in jazz circles when he took the money route with The Blackbyrds. This album was him at his creative best.

High Contrast – Gabor Szabo

I would take this on a desert island with me – it is one of my favourite albums. This is also one of the most bizarre collaborations in musical history. Gabor Szabo (Hungarian gyspy) and Bobby Womack (Amercian soul legend). Bobby only plays guitar. This album features the original version of Breezin’ made famous five years later by George Benson. The original, as is usually the case, is far superior. A mention too for the drumming of the always excellent Jim Keltner.

Live at the Five Spot – Eric Dolphy

I just love the feel of this live double CD. Mal Waldron on piano stands out as of course does the genius of Dolphy. When I listen to him I wonder what he would have gone on to create had he lived. He was dead a year or two later. (‘Last Date’ recorded in Holland is worth buying too with a terrific version of ‘Miss Ann’ – called last date because it was for Dolphy).

Free Form – Joe Harriot

Britain’s first jazz genius laid this down in 1961 and it is up there with the work of Coltrane around that time. Groundbreaking and powerful it was of course virtually ignored in the UK. The Penguin Guide To Jazz recently acknowledged its classic status by awarding it the 5 stars only given to very few albums (Kind of Blue, Love Supreme etc). It is that good.

Take Twelve – Lee Morgan

Sidewinder is the most famous. But I like this. A formula blue note jazz album perhaps but ‘A Waltz for Fran’ is beautiful and Second’s Best and the title track great jazz blasts. One to go for when you are not sure what to put on or have been listening to the jazz classics too much.


Eastern Sounds – Yusuf Lateef

A great album from 1957 from a great guy with YL showing the range of musical instruments he can play. This was the album that reconnected me to jazz around 1990 after a lull. It has a lovely feel and understatement in the playing. This is just ‘cool’, sparse and it sounds so evocative of the late 1950’s. YL is one of the very few who sounds convincing playing jazz on the flute too (along with Dolphy of course).


Far Cry – Eric Dolphy with Booker Little

This is an album of pure genius played by two of them. It features both Dolphy just as he was becoming THE great multi-instrumentalist of the time and the trumpter Booker Little who died aged 23. I have loved this from the moment I bought it when I was about 22 and really getting into jazz. Every track is great with the opener featuring the little played bass clarinet and a magnificent “Tenderly’ featuring wonderful solo alto sax from the man himself. This is a straight jazz album just before Dolphy announced his freeform credentials with ‘Out to Lunch’ and others. For a time (perhaps two years) I think he was the best.

The backing musicians are Jaki Byard, Ron Cater and Roy Haynes. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Sweetnighter – Weather Report.

Everyone knows Black Market and Heavy Weather but this is the one for me. Boogie Woogie Waltz is like nothing I have ever heard and shows what a great rhythmic keyboard player Joe Zawinul was. No wonder he was in Adderley’s band for so long. Intelligent fusion when the idiom was being abused and jazz becoming unrecognisable. That had a good side but I don’t really think that black American jazz music has ever recovered. The Scandinavians now rule the jazz world.


The Black Messiah – Cannonball Adderley

I have put this in because I haven’t heard it for 20 years! I want to hear it again and I cannot find it. I remember it was live and I think featured a young George Duke on keyboards. I just remember listening to this a few times at my friend Robin’s when we were about 18 and it was great. Robin of course ‘lost’ the album.


I must add that today, despite all the jazz pontification I have been enjoying Dusty Springfield's 'Dusty in Memphis'. The only white woman who could ever sing soul. Anyone disagree?